4 Steps To Effective Forum Marketing

In my last post, I discussed the importance of finding what people want first before actually going out there and creating your products and services.

And a great way to accomplish this is by visiting forums and see what the people there are saying (or complaining).

In this post, let’s take a look at some of the tricks on how to do effective forum marketing to market our products and services.

Before we begin, it’s important to take note that you’re not going to blatantly sell your products and services. If you do that, then disaster is going to fall upon you as you’ll be banned on the first day in the forums!

How do you market your products and services then?

Well, here’s a step-by-step system on how to do effective forum marketing:

Step 1:

Read the forum rules first before you do anything else, especially the rules concerning your forum signature.

You don’t have to spend ages reading the rules. Just scan them quickly and make sure you understand the expected code of conduct in the forum.

Step 2:

Create your forum signature.

Here are some tips on creating a powerful signature so that you get as many clicks as possible:

- Make sure that the signature invokes some kind of benefits

A signature that looks like this:

Click here to see my acne site

is a very poor signature that does not contain any kind of benefits.

On the other hand, a signature that looks like this:

Get your free report on how you can cure your acne in 3 simple steps

is much more powerful that is going to attract more clicks.

This may or may not seem obvious to you, but A LOT of people outside the IM niche do not know this very important concept.

- Make sure that the signature invokes some kind of curiosity

In addition to creating a benefit-filled signature, it’s also advisable to add some kind of curiosity ingredients to your signature.

For instance, our previous signature:

Get your free report on how you can cure your acne in 3 simple steps

could be better written like this:

Get the forbidden ‘cure your acne in 3 simple steps’ free report other acne experts don’t want you to know

- Capitalize the first letter of every word (if allowed by the forum)

Your original signature that looks like this:

Get the forbidden ‘cure your acne in 3 simple steps’ free report other acne experts don’t want you to know

would now look like this:

Get The Forbidden ‘Cure Your Acne In 3 Simple Steps’ Free Report Other Acne Experts Don’t Want You To Know

Why do you have to do this?

Because it stands out more so that more people notice your signature.

- Bold your signature (if allowed by the forum)

For the same simple reason as before, this will make your signature stands out more.

Step 3:

Now that you’ve created your forum signature, it’s time to start posting.

Remember that you’re in someone else’s house, so DO NOT blatantly try to sell your products and services.

The first post that you want to make is to open a new thread and introduce yourself to the other forum members. You can say things like where you’re from and your purpose in joining the forum.

Of course DO NOT say that your purpose is to sell your products and services. You could say that you are a former acne sufferer and you’re interested in all things related to acne.

It’s important that you do this so that others can at least know who you are and your background. This will serve well later on when you try to build a community in this forum.

Step 4:

After you’ve introduced yourself to the forum, it’s time to explore some of the forum threads and see if you can find some threads that you can contribute to.

Again, always remember not to sell blatantly.

The key is to join the discussion by providing great information and value that others will find useful. Contribute your expertise and try to help as many people as you possibly can.

One cool trick you can use is to contribute to threads that are still on the first page of the forum AND when you post your reply, your reply is still on the first page of that thread.

Confused?

Let me illustrate with screenshots…

This is what I mean when I say on the first page of the forum:

This is what I mean when I say when you post your reply, your reply is still on the first page of that thread:

The above screenshot shows 5 threads. If you were to reply to these threads, then your reply is going to show up on the first page of that thread, with the exception of the last thread (as can seen above that if you post your reply, it is going to show up on the 3rd page).

Please note that I’m not saying that you shouldn’t post to threads that are more than 1 page long. I’m simply saying the chance that someone comes across your post (and your signature) is higher if you post to threads that is only 1 page long.

In order to make your forum marketing campaign a success, you must actively participate in the discussion. Consistency in helping others and providing value to them is key to effective forum marketing.

Once you’ve successfully build beneficial and trusting relationships with the people in the forum, selling to them becomes much easier.

A reminder for the last time: You’re in someone else’s house, so DO NOT spam!

Very good post.
I have tried several strategies to promote my product on forums also. But the gap from promotion to spam is very close. That’s making the whole forum marketing complicated and less effective IMHO!

My favorite marketing forum tip is to regularly contribute and demonstrate your expertise on the subject matter at hand. When you get recognized as and (or THE) authority you just naturally attract people.

Here’s another one while I’m here: One forum marketing tactic I like to use is to find common issues people are posting in the forum and then create a thread that solves those issues. Then I’ll response to those threads with by posting the link to the thread I created.

I don’t know if i agree with capitalizing every first letter of the word for the signature. I agree with most of the steps. What i try to do though is wait after i have like 50 posts or more to slowly start marketing.

I got it indexed in Google first, then started some topics of my own and started asking around at other similar fourms (making sure not to spam) until I had a few active members. Once you have a few active members + targeted traffic it just snowballs from there.

The forum marketing is very difficult because you must know how to attack the market and which products are able to be tolerated and purchased by the users. However, the real problem (in my opinion) is to have the ability to offer the correct product for a customer. The forums are difficult to control and the concurrence can attack you on the forum threads.

To be honest this is the first so complex and rich article about profile signature that I found on web. Before reading it I didn’t know how many errors it can contain and how easily it can be improved. I know You heard it a million times but… Thank You great job!

Thanks this is helpful actually. I’d done exactly what you recommended not too with my signature and have been struggling for a few months now. I guess really i should go back into the forums and edit but maybe I should just start a fresh and find some better areas with my new improved signature. Any advice would be great.
Thanks, Neil

Very good post.
I have tried several strategies to promote my product on forums also. But the gap from promotion to spam is very close. That’s making the whole forum marketing complicated and less effective IMHO!

Perfect quote and advice “you’re in someone else’s house”. I administrate a forum and always hate seeing the obvious spam come through. No one clicks on it or gives it a second thought because they’re not part of the community. Contributing and being a part of the community makes the sale easy.

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I don’t know what my mental block has been about doing this. I’ve read from enough people in the know, like you and Marlon Sanders and many others that if you post a few times a day in a few forums, you site (in your signature) WILL start getting traffic (if you do it like you instruct.)

It’s still January, so in my book, this qualifies still as a New Year’s resolution. THIS is the year I forum market on a daily basis.

The trick, I’ve read is to make your contributions, or ask your questions and get out without lingering all day, otherwise you can get stuck and not get your daily work done.

zinymegan

Hey Guys,

I am a student (limited budget) and have seen a few offers for free ipods and iphones. Does anyone Know if any if the free IPhone or Ipod offers are actually legit? I don’t want to waste my time filling out a hundred surveys and was hoping to hear from someone who may have had some success with this.

This is a good post, Welly. I am getting more traffic from my forum posts than anything else. Mostly because I am a brand new blog but you have given me some ideas on how to promote a product I am working on.

One interesting thing I noticed is some forums are dofollow and that makes me wonder how that helps with the keywords for the products in the signature.

@TonyB: In a nutshell, to get your website on the front page of Google you first need to determine the keywords you want to target. Then you need to find 1 way incoming links to your site that contain your targeted keywords in the anchor text. If you want a way to automate this link building process, I highly recommend 3WL

TonyB

Hi Everyone,
I have a carpet cleaning business in Houston,TX that was doing pretty good until the economy went bad, and with it my clientele. I have a website for the business but I dont
know what I have to do the get it to show up in a search. Right now it’s somewhere in the yahoo/google netherworld (LOL).

Is there someone on here that can give me some insight or know of anyone that coud give me insight on how I can get my local website on the front
page of a Yahoo or Google search to increase my business without it costing me 5 or 10k $$$? If so please share with me.

@Bo: Exactly! Spamming is a big No-No and must be avoided at all costs. Providing great value to the conversation is key. Rather than visiting a lot of different forums, it’d be better to focus on 1 or 2 forums.

Welly is right forums are an important source of traffic if you consistently visit the same forums and post. If you visit a forum once and never return then chances of getting traffic is slim and next to none.

The part Welly mentioned about not spamming a forum is important. As a forum and blog owner I am seeing a drastic increase in spam being caught by automatic comment spam blockers or the moderators of the forum.

If you spam at most forums the moderators are quick to cancel your membership and when they do all your post will disappear from the forum and your time and effort spent posting goes down the drain.

Again Welly thank you for the great information and talking about spamming forums.